An example computer ecosystem, or digital ecosystem, which is an adaptive and distributed socio-technical system that is characterized by its sustainability, self-organization, and scalability, that is pertinent to present principles is a home network.
Technologies such as universal plug-n-play (UPnP) and digital living network alliance (DLNA) allow for audiovisual content to be served, discovered and played back over the home network via a user interface residing on client devices in the network. In addition, UPnP and DLNA define how a remote user interface (RUI) can be discovered and launched on the client device. However, neither approach allows for content that requires the RUI to be present for playback to be discovered and launched by a user interface residing on the client.
Thus, web application-based electronic program guides (EPGs) that are discovered over home networks with protocols like DLNA are monolithic, and individual content items are not accessible from third party user interfaces that may wish to search and play said content. Currently, if individual content is made available for discovery and playback, web application features that may be required by the content distributor to control the playback experience, maintain branding, verify credentials and include value added services like targeted ad insertion are not provided. Such loss of control means content distributors are reluctant to use existing technologies. Yet service operators remain concerned about loss of value to their service and the inability to innovate when a standard becomes fixed by regulation. In any case, no technology exists based on standard technologies like UPnP/DLNA that can address the above-noted drawbacks with, e.g., monolithic EPGs.
UPnP offers a service, known as a remoteUIServer service, to allow a server to advertise and a client to discover a remote user interface on a home network; DLNA uses this technology to target web based EPGs with its HTML5 RUI service and VidiPath™ services. From discovery of these services, the client will know the provider of the guide but nothing about the availability of multimedia content within. However, the content is essentially monolithic to the guide.